Hungary’s low cost airline Wizz Air could resume flights from Lviv in spring next year, with negotiations between the carrier and the city’s international airport now at the final stage.
A spokesperson for Lviv’s Danylo Halytskyi International Airport, told the Kyiv Post that although nothing has been officially signed off on, they were optimistic that Eastern Europe’s largest low cost carrier would to start to operate new routes from Lviv in the first half of the year.
Plans to launch flights to Germany, Italy, Spain Portugal and the United Kingdom are currently under discussion, the spokesperson said.
“Since February 2016 we’ve been discussing their return. Lviv is a city that interests them,” the spokesperson said.
Wizz Air in October announced it would be operating a new route from Kyiv to Bratislava, Slovakia, from Dec. 17.
It will also start flying from Kyiv to Hannover, Germany, and Wroclaw, Poland in the coming month.
In a press statement issued by Wizz Air on its website, Head of Communications Tamara Vallois said the new route to the capital would help stimulate business and the hospitality sector in Ukraine “by attracting more visitors to Kyiv.”
Wizz Air did not respond to the Kyiv Post’s request for an interview.
The company restructured its Ukrainian operations and closed its Ukrainian-based operations last year in response to ongoing instability in the east of Ukraine, the devaluation of Ukraine’s hryvnia currency, exchange-rate volatility, and the impact of foreign exchange controls.
The international carrier cancelled nearly a dozen flights and transferred the remaining eight to the Hungarian division of Wizz Air.
In the wake of the decision, the company stated that it would be ready to expand its service again, once conditions in the country improved.
The past few months have seen Wizz Air slowly expand the number of routes offered from Kyiv. The airline currently offers 13 flights from Ukraine’s capital.
Ukraine’s Infrastructure Minister Volodymyr Omelyan said Wizz Air’s launch of new flights was a promising sign, but that it was “too premature” to say whether that means the company is ready to reopen its Ukrainian division.
He said the biggest restrictions on low cost carriers at the moment were the currency devaluation and the return of investment restrictions imposed by the National Bank of Ukraine.
Earlier this year, Omelyan told media that Wizz Air could re-enter the Ukrainian market this year.
“I still believe that (Wizz Air) will return in full capacity, but right now it’s up to the National Bank of Ukraine,” he said.
“As soon as all those restrictions are lifted, I think it would be very natural for them to register a daughter company in Ukraine.”
Omelyan said that Ukraine’s aviation market was currently booming, with a nearly 30-percent increase in passenger traffic since the start of the year.
